Páginas

viernes, 26 de septiembre de 2014

Iturbide, a soldier of Mexico

Author's note
One day in the early nineties, the author was wandering through the stone paved, gloomy corridors of the Imperial Palace of iturbide, and in a moment was born the germ of the story which has wrought itself out in "A Soldier of Mexico". The setting was drawn from ever present, loved memories of days and n ights spent in the mountains of the interior and picturesque camp life on the endless strech of chaparral covered desert. As these pages were penned, a vivid mind picture of the old world city in the New -Tenochtitlan- with its massive palaces and crumbling convents, was born again, a reminder of the days when fanatic priests, haughty viceroys, beautiful women, arden lovers and dashing soldiers, played their parts upon the stage of Mexican history with that dramatic intensity which has ever characterized the children of the southland. The Latin races are essentially neurastheniacs. Like the French and Spaniards, the Mexicans are emotional to a degree tha at times borders on the hysterical.It is theirs to love and hate with a depth possible only in so peculiarly constituted people.

The author has endeavored to tell the story of "Iturbide" as a Mexican would tell it, and a story so told necessitates, perforce at times, a melodramatic rapidity of action and ultra intensity of the element of passion, consistent with the people and the setting.

J. L. M.

Contents
Historical preface

I. For love of a woman
II. Juana la Garza
III. A mason at sight
IV. The fete in honor of the viceroy
V. The million-dollar convoy of the viceroy
VI. The bedchamber of Juana la Garza
VII. The honor of Santa Anna
VIII. The dungeons of San Juan de Ulua
IX, For the good of the Church of Rome
X. The conversion of a women-hater
XI. The compliments of general Santa Anna
XII. The compliments of the Emperor iturbide